The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation

Ron Gura didn't build Empathy because he saw a market gap. He built it because he'd lived through loss — including the death of his brother — and knew the industry was getting it wrong.

Not on purpose. But wrong nonetheless.

In the latest episode of The Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Ron, Co-Founder & CEO of Empathy, for one of the most human conversations the show has had. Because at the heart of it, that's exactly what this is about.

Ron explains how Empathy provides continuity of care through technology and services for life's hardest moments — bereavement, legacy planning, disability — partnering with insurers and employers to transform what has historically been a transactional process into something genuinely supportive.

They also get into:

✅ Why 91% of beneficiaries are satisfied with claims — but fewer than 1 in 10 repurchase from the same carrier
✅ The "orphan claim" problem — 70% of US life insurance claims have no assigned advisor
✅ How AI should make humans more human, not replace them
✅ What the $100 trillion generational wealth transfer means for life insurers right now
✅ Empathy's expansion into Canada and Europe — and what's coming next

With 200 employees across multiple offices and a live partnership with Zurich serving over 3 million people, this is a company that's moved well beyond vision into execution.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Finn didn't come from insurance. He came from startups — real estate, entertainment, a TPA. But when he looked at the Canadian Insurtech landscape and saw how much was being left on the table, he decided to do something about it.

He took over InsurTech Canada. And then he started rebuilding it from the ground up.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Finn for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to build an insurtech ecosystem — not just talk about one.

Finn shares how he transformed InsurTech Canada from a non-profit meetup organisation into a for-profit, deal-flow-focused platform with a curated membership of 27 companies. And he opens up about his next move: launching an InsurTech investment fund, focused primarily on Canadian companies but with eyes on the US and UK markets too.

They also get into:

✅ Why Canada lags 2–3 years behind other markets — and what needs to change
✅ The talent drain pulling founders and operators south of the border
✅ How to evaluate founders (and why people skills matter as much as product)
✅ His vision for Canada to become a genuine global hub for InsurTech innovation
✅ What it means to have "skin in the game" when you're championing an ecosystem

With a clear commercial mindset, a growing network across carriers, brokers, MGAs, and capital providers — and a fund on the horizon — Finn is one to watch.

#LeadershipInInsurance #Podcast #Insurtech #InsurtechCanada #VC #Innovation #Insurance #Canada

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Dan Briselden sits down with James Rendell, CEO and founder of BirdsEyeView — a UK-based insurance technology company backed by the European Space Agency — for a conversation that spans the journey from Lloyds broker to InsurTech entrepreneur.
James brings a rare blend of market knowledge and technological curiosity to the world of natural catastrophe modelling. His path didn't start with a lightbulb moment: it started with a genuine obsession with emerging technology, a willingness to show up alone to InsurTech events, and a growing conviction that satellite data could meaningfully improve how the insurance market models and manages catastrophe risk.

In this episode, James and Dan explore:

🔹 How BirdsEyeView secured backing from the European Space Agency and why that rigorous, year-long process turned out to be the best thing the business ever did
🔹 Why building customer-first — really understanding the day-to-day problems underwriters face — has been the key driver of early traction across Lloyds, Australia and the US
🔹 The challenge of selling into a market that's historically slow to adopt new technology, and how to shorten the sales cycle by starting niche and expanding from there
🔹 Why secondary perils like wildfire and severe convective storm represent the biggest product opportunity and where BirdsEyeView is investing to stay ahead of the incumbents
🔹 How AI has already transformed output at BirdsEyeView — and why James believes the science-heavy, domain-specific nature of catastrophe modelling keeps them well ahead of any AI-generated challengers

James also shares his vision for where BirdsEyeView is heading: to become the go-to tool for at-desk hazard modelling and exposure management — bridging the long-standing gap between the lightweight tools underwriters use daily and the sophisticated outputs of the traditional vendor models.

If you work in underwriting, exposure management, or catastrophe risk — or if you're building a business in the Lloyds or cover holder market — this episode is full of honest, hard-won insight from a founder who's done it the right way.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you bring self-driving car technology to workplace safety and what does it mean for the future of insurance?

In the latest episode of The Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Josh Butler, Founder & CEO of CompScience, to explore how AI and computer vision are fundamentally reshaping workers' compensation underwriting and loss control.

Josh shares how CompScience was born from a personal moment — a family member's construction site accident — and how the same technology that powers autonomous vehicles is now helping carriers finally understand workplace risk at a level that was never before possible.

The results speak for themselves. Customers are seeing injury rates drop by 20-30% — not by replacing loss control professionals, but by giving them the data and authority to act as true consultants rather than just salespeople.

On what's driving CompScience's success, Butler is clear:
"Leaders need to get hands-on with AI to understand the challenges and opportunities. You can't just watch from the sidelines."

Josh and Alex also dig into the wider market landscape: how advances in LLMs and agentic AI have transformed who can build software, why problem-solvers are now more valuable than coders, and the regulatory risks that keep him up at night.

A fascinating conversation for anyone at the intersection of AI, safety, and insurance.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Dan Briselden sits down with Stan Smith, CEO and founder of Gradient AI — one of the fastest-growing AI platforms in the insurance industry — for a wide-ranging conversation on data, decisioning, and what it actually takes to build something that sticks in this market.

Stan is a six-time startup veteran who came to insurance not from the industry itself, but from a deep belief that machine learning could solve problems most insurers didn't yet know how to articulate. His route in — through Milliman's franchise model and a patient, trust-first approach to data partnerships — is one of the most instructive origin stories in InsurTech.

In this episode, Stan and Dan explore:

🔹 How Stan leveraged Milliman's brand to unlock carrier data at a time when no one was handing it over — and why that decision became the foundation of Gradient's competitive moat
🔹 The real ROI numbers: from single-digit millions on smaller books to 10x returns confirmed by clients' own internal data science teams and why Stan measures success by value delivered, not just revenue earned
🔹 How Gradient navigated the journey from MGA-focused startup to large carrier partner, and why the warmest first carrier deals came through MGAs using their paper
🔹 Where AI is genuinely replacing human effort in insurance and where Stan believes human judgement will always be the differentiator, from complex claims to nuanced underwriting calls
🔹 The governance and bias challenge in AI-powered underwriting, and why Stan thinks regulators will increasingly focus on what data models are fed, not just how they work

Stan also shares his vision for where Gradient is heading next — from individual healthcare lines like Medicare Advantage and MedSupp through to disability and life — and why he believes there has never been a better time to be building AI in insurance.

If you work in underwriting, claims, or insurance technology — or if you're trying to understand what AI adoption actually looks like at scale across the carrier and MGA market — this episode is packed with hard-won insight from someone who has been building in this space for over a decade.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.